Written And Directed by Emerald Fennell
Oliver: "I wasn't in love with him. I know everybody thought I was but I wasn't. I loved him of course. It was impossible not to love Felix. And that was part of the problem."
Getting out of the festive phase and into some award contenders, I got around to watching this intriguing piece last night. Some seem to adore this movie, others not so much. I'm kind of somewhere in the middle with this one.
As a filmmaker, Emerald Fennell certainly wants to push boundaries and her previous effort, Promising Young Woman definitely evoked it's own controversy three years ago. This film definitely tried to push the edge but a part of me also thought it was slightly holding back too in a way.
The movie has Barry Keoghan as Oliver Quick, a middle class genius struggling to forge connections at Oxford until he happened to get very friendly with popular posh boy Felix Catton (Jacob Elordi). Actually scratch "friendly" and just say "full on obsessed" because that's exactly how Oliver became towards Felix in a relatively short space of time.
It's not long before personal tragedy gets Oliver an invite at Felix's home, the Saltburn manor and even in less time Oliver was making an impression on Felix's family. Notably cousin Farleigh (Archie Madekwe) as the latter was openly hostile to Oliver, trying to humiliate him at every turn before Oliver managed to get Farleigh ousted from the manor.
Oliver's trail of destruction was pretty fascinating to watch, especially following Felix quickly realising that his new friend lied about his family situation. With Oliver's obsession intensified, it didn't exactly end well for Felix and one by one, the remaining Catton family members were taken out of the equation.
Both Felix's sister Venetia (Alison Oliver) and father James (Richard E. Grant) cottoned on too late to Oliver destroying the family. However it was Felix's mother, Elspeth (Rosamund Pike) who had become too enamoured with Oliver with disastrous results. Let's just say the movie ended with Oliver getting rewarded for eating the rich.
- There's a fun appearance from Carey Mulligan as Elspeth's friend, Pamela, who none of the Cattons actually liked.
- The Brideshead Revisited and Maurice influences are rather deliberate as both books influenced Fennell's writing for the movie.
- Standout music: Of course it's going to Sophie Ellis-Baxter's Murder On The Dancefloor. For the most obvious reasons.
- Chronology: The movie started in 2006 with the majority of it then moving into summer 2007.
Saltburn might be one of the more interesting movies I've watched this year. In terms of performance, Barry Keoghan, Jacob Elordi, Rosamund Pike and Carey Mulligan (brief as the latter was) stood out the most, though no one slouched here. It's a film that wants to be provocative and daring and in some ways, it does achieve that but at the same time, you definitely think they could've pushed it a bit further as well. Saying that I did this little bit of crazy decadence nonetheless.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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